IMO, That's a good thing.

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Originally posted by Twins12:
It is amazing how much the ratings have gone down for awards shows during the past year or so.

quote:

Originally posted by TV-aholic:

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The 35th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards got very little mileage on ABC, with just 5.39 million viewers and a 1.2 rating/ 4 share among adults 18-49 from 8-10 p.m. Take a look at the half-hour breakdown:

With ratings like this, the Daytime Emmy's will start airing DURING the Daytime.

Or, be regulatyed to a presentaion much like the Technical Awards are given.

With only ABC and CBS rotating the awards, I wouldn't be surprised, once the current contract ends, that the awards moves to Soapnet on a permanent basis where it would do much better. These awards, once aired during the May Sweeps, to larger ratings, but like Daytime itself, it has fallen on hard times.

It is shocking how far daytime dramas have fallen. Young and the restless used to pull in like an 8 now it's like a 4.5. These daytime awards ratings are actually higher than any soap on the air right now. I think Friday is a bad day to air these awards anyways and I think if MVP's ratings translate to soapnet with the continued episodes it will be a success. If you don't watch daytime, just like the tonys, I don't think you'd really watch the awards shows.

btw -- all you psych fans -- check out this ebony and ivory promo

http://www.usanetwork.com/series/psych/video/interviews/ebonyivory.html

Y&R used to be a 4.5. Over the past 3 months it's dropped dramatically from the 4's to the 3's and now averages between a 3.4 and a 3.6, with some days touching a 3.2. Y&R was the last ratings holdout - daytime is over.

quote:

Originally posted by DB108:
Y&R used to be a 4.5. Over the past 3 months it's dropped dramatically from the 4's to the 3's and now averages between a 3.4 and a 3.6, with some days touching a 3.2. Y&R was the last ratings holdout - daytime is over.

Several possible explanations of the sharp decline of daytime Nielsen numbers.

1. Daytime viewers have migrated over to new channels (online viewing, Soapnet encores). Since we don't see numbers for online viewing (at abc.com, for instance), its hard to say if the migration to online equals the live viewing losses.

2. Daytime viewers are making higher-than-average use of DVRs to time-shift viewing. The only problem with this theory is that an hour a pop, daytime episodes of serials can quickly fill up a DVR unless they're watched on a diligent basis.

3. Daytime viewers are abandoning the serial drama format (like they earlier abandoned game shows and off-primetime scripted encores) for other daytime alternatives (court shows, talkies). If this is true, then I would have expected to see higher numbers coming from The View.

4. There are just not as many daytime viewers as there used to be due to higher workforce / school participation rates. Over the last 40+ years, the trend towards two-income families is so nearly complete that today I know only a handful A18-49's who would describe themselves as a home-maker, even for those families with a large gaggle of young brood. And the stay at home self-employed seem far too busy with their e-mails, Blackberries and Facebooks to have the concentration required to keep up with a good serial drama.

dumont,

You forgot one. I know many people who watch the soaps online at CBS.com and on other internet sites. At only 36-38 minutes in length, you can easily watch them during your lunch break.

About a year ago, I remember reading a list from TiVo on most popular DVRed shows, and several daytime soaps made the list, including Y&R and DOOL.

IIRC, the most popular daytime encores on SoapNet garner more than one million viewers (Believe at one point, the 11p encores of DOOL garnered 1.2-1.3 million viewers).

As ragincajun noted, you can also watch the soaps online.

While some soap fans are dying off, I do feel there are others who are turning to DVRs and the Net to get their soap fix.

Another reason for the decline? Repetitive storylines that don't resonate with today's viewers. As I've mentioned before, my wife's been a DOOL fan for 20 years, and I've watched the show for the last two years or so with her. There's so much repetition and predictability with some storylines (love triangles, affairs, etc.), that it can drive viewers batty.

There is some promise in terms of "realism" on some shows (ATWT's gay couple, DOOL's upcoming storyline on autism), but those can be needles in haystacks.

James

I think the biggest problem with soaps is that they stink, plain and simple. A typical soap these days usually has no more than one good storyline, and even that's pushing it. Read the message boards - I think the only soap people are generally happy with these days is OLTL. Y&R, GL, GH & AMC have been trashed for years.

Not that soaps have ever been spectacular, but the change is so much more evident these days with the rise of the primetime drama. We are truly in the golden age of the primetime drama (Lost, The Sopranos, DH, GA, Dexter, The Wire, BSG, etc), and it makes daytime soaps look so much worse by comparison.

The last soap I watched was Passions, which is a whole other ballgame (so inherently stupid, but so entertaining because of it). I've seen AMC occasionally, but the hand-held camera work is so distracting that I tune out immediately.

With the average soap rating now sitting at a 2.2 (!), daytime is dead. Days, for inexample, has lost 75% of its women 18-34 audience in the past 6 years, and most soaps are sitting around a 50% loss.

quote:

3. Daytime viewers are abandoning the serial drama format (like they earlier abandoned game shows and off-primetime scripted encores) for other daytime alternatives (court shows, talkies). If this is true, then I would have expected to see higher numbers coming from The View.

This is true. HUT levels during the daytime have held steady or risen over the past 6 years while the numbers for soaps has steadily declined. I posted this on TVBTN a week weeks back:

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It really seems like the losses are accelerating. For instance, in women 18-34 (the prime demo):

1. DAYS -27%
2. Y&R -17%
2. GH 1.0/6 -28%
2. OLTL 1.0/6 -17%
5. AMC 0.8/5 -27%
6. B&B 0.7/5 -23%
7. ATWT 0.5/3 -28%
8. GL 0.4/2 -42%

And that's just in one year! It's absolutely insane how younger viewers are just abandoning these series in droves. Compared to the same week in 2003:

Women 18-34 Rating
1. DAYS -72%
2. Y&R -37%
2. GH -50%
2. OLTL -50%
5. AMC -56%
6. B&B -56%
7. ATWT -50%
8. GL 0.4/2 -33%

It just astounds me that Days has gone from a 26 share in this demo to a 7 in just 5 years. Some will argue that people are watching tv less, but the shares and ratings just do not tell that story.

Days in 2003: 3.9/26 (15.0/100 total women 18-34 households during the timeslot)
Days in 2008: 1.1/7 (15.7/100 total women 18-34)

". . .She's 1,000,000 times the actress that the vastly overrated La Douche-ci could ever be."

While entitled to your opinion, and I am NOT disagreeing with you, I do not see any reason to make fun of Susan Lucci and her Italian name. I don't even think it is funny.

quote:

Originally posted by Marc Berman:
Prime-Time Ratings
Friday 6/20/08
-Adults 18-49:
CBS, NBC, Fox and the CW: 1.3 rating/5 share each, ABC: 1.0/ 4
The CW aired another installment of its soon-to-depart Friday Night Smackdown! (Viewers: #4, 3.86 million; A18-49: #1t, 1.3/ 5 from 8-10 p.m.).

In the final numbers, The CW improved to a 1.4 in A18-49, and won it's first outright A18-49 victory of the 2007-8 season (last week was a tie).

WWE Smackdown has won or tied for first in the A18-49 demographic twice this season, but won or tied in A18-49 for The CW eight times last season.

Those ten A18-49 victories are the only A18-49 victories for The CW since the networks inception.

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Originally posted by dumont:
WWE Smackdown has won or tied for first in the A18-49 demographic twice this season, but won or tied in A18-49 for The CW eight times last season.

Its always good to have first run programming while the other networks are in reruns, but if I had to wager a guess, I'd guess that Univision likely came out on top Friday night.